1. Field of the Invention
The current invention relates to conference-call systems, and in particular, to improving the user experience for conference-call participants.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conference call provides an economical way for participants in multiple locations to participate in a meeting and be able to discuss topics of interest without requiring all the participants to be physically located in the same place for the meeting. In a typical conference call, some participants are located together in one location, i.e., co-located, while other participants at other locations are either alone or also in groups. In some conference calls, every participant is alone. As used herein and unless otherwise indicated, a conference call refers to a telephonic call with at least three total participants and at least two conferencing nodes. A conferencing node, as used herein and unless otherwise indicated, refers to a conference-call location with one telecommunication device and at least one participant. The simplest conference call, thus, involves two conferencing nodes, where one node hosts one participant and the other node hosts two participants. More-complex conference calls include more participants, more conferencing nodes, or more of both.
A conference-call system generally efficiently transmits the voices of participants. However, there is other potentially useful information that is not typically transmitted by a conference-call system. For example, simple conference-call systems provide no indication of who is speaking at any particular time. Thus, other participants at remote locations might be unable to determine who is talking, which makes analysis of and response to the talker's statements more difficult than if all participants were in the same location and could see who is talking.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,481 to Penzias, for example, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a method and apparatus for tracking conference-call participants using conference-tracker apparatuses at the various locations, which (i) are provided with identifying information and (ii) communicate with each other via audio pulses. U.S. Pat. No. 7,266,189 to Day, for example, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes an apparatus and method for identifying stationary conference-call participants by their spatial position with respect to a station of the conference-call system.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,305,078 to Kardos, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes systems and methods for identifying speakers in a conference call using a voice-recognition module that compares the voice of a current speaker to stored voiceprints associated with identifying information. Other conference-call participants are then sent the identifying information. U.S. Pat. App. Pub. No. 2007/0106724 to Gorti et al., incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes a system and method for conference calls where participants are identified by their login information and where a module monitors who is speaking.
The prior-art methods may require more processing than is needed to accomplish the goal of identifying speakers in a conference call. In addition, they do not provide some features that users may find useful.